134 ANATOMY AND DISEASES OF THE NOSE AND MOUTH. 



— the weakest of all, exposed day after day to the stimulating, debilitatino; influences 

 that have been described, becomes the principal seat of intiammation tliat terminates 

 in glanders. 



It is ill this way that glanders have so frequently been known to follow a hard 

 day's chase. The seeds of the disease may have j)reviously existed, but its progress 

 will be hastened by the general and febrile action excited — the absurd measures 

 A^hich are adopted not being calculated to subdue the fever, but to increase the stim- 

 dus. 



Every exciting cause of disease exerts its chief and its worst influence on this mem- 

 brane. At the close of a severe campaign the horses are more than decimated by 

 this pest. At the termination of the Peninsular war the ravages of this disease were 

 dreadful. Every disease will predispose the membrane of the nose to take on the 

 inflammation of glanders, and with many, as strangles, catarrh, bronchitis, and pneu- 

 monia, there is a continuity of membrane, an association of function, and a thousand 

 sympathies. 



There is not a disease which may not lay the foundation for glanders. Weeks, 

 and months, and years, may intervene between the predisposing cause and the actual 

 evil ; but at length the whole frame may become excited or debilitated in many a way, 

 and then this debilitated portion of it is the first to yield to the attack. Atmospheric 

 influence has somewhat to do with the prevalence of glanders. It is not so frequent 

 in summer as in the winter, partly attributable, perhaps, to the different state of the 

 stable in the summer months, neither the air so close or so foul, nor the alternations 

 of temperature so great. 



There are some remarkable cases of the connexion of moisture, or moist exhala- 

 tions, that deserve record. When new stabling was built for the troops at Hythe, 

 and inhabited before the walls were perfectly dry, many of the horses that had been 

 removed from an open, dry, and healthy situation, became affected M'ith glanders ; 

 but, some time having passed over, the horses in these stables were as liealthy as the 

 others, and glanders ceased to appear. An innkeeper at Wakefield built some exten- 

 sive stabling for his horses, and, inhabiting them too soon, Inst a great proportion of 

 his cattle from glanders. There are not now more healthy stables in the place. The 

 immense range of stables under the Adelphi, in the Strand, where light never enters, 

 and the sup})ly of fresh air is not too abundant, were for a long time notoriously un- 

 healthy, and many valuable horses were destroyed by glanders ; but now they are 

 filled with the finest wagon and dray-horses that the metropolis or the country con- 

 tains, and they are I'ully as healthy as in the majority of stables above-ground. 



There is one more cause to be slightly mentioned — hereditary predisposition. This 

 has not been sufficiently estimated, with regard to the fpiestion now under considera- 

 tion, as well as with respect to everything connected with the breeding of the horse. 

 There is scarcely a disease that does not run in the stock. There is that in the struc- 

 ture of various parts, or their disposition to he allected by certain influences, which 

 perpetuates in the offspring the diseases of the sire; and thus contraction, ophthalmia, 

 roaring, are decidedly hereditary, and so is glanders. M. Dupuy relates some deci- 

 sive cases. A irfaro, on dissection, exhibited every appearance of glanders ; her filly, 

 who resembled her in form and in her vicious propensities, died glandered at six years 

 old. A second and a third mare, and their foals, presented the same fatal proof that 

 glanders are hereditary. 



Glanders are highly contagious. The farmer cannot be too deeply impressed with 

 the certainty of this. Considering the degree to which this disease, even at the pre 

 sent day, often prevails, the legislature would be justified in interfering, by some 

 severe enactments, as it has done in tlie case of the small-pox in \\m human subject. 



The early and marked symptom of glanders, is a discharge from the nostrils of a 

 peculiar character; and if that, even before it becomf s purulent, is rubbed on a 

 wound, or on a mucous surface, as the nostrils, it will i)roduce a similar disease. If 

 the division between two horses were snlTici'ntly hiijh to jirpvent all smelling and 

 snorting at each other, and contact of every kind, and thvx drank not out of the same 

 pail, a sound horse mii.'ht live for years, uninfrcted. l)y the side of a glanden d one. 

 The matter of glanders has b(>en mixed up into a ball, and given to a healthy horse, 

 without effect. Some horses have eaten the hay left by those that were glandered, 



